Chronicles of a Recruit
by Phoenixian
Summary: Nikita and Alex weren't the only promising recruits to pass through division. Dani first killed to save the family she hasn't seen since, and almost a decade later life has caught up to her in the form of Division. She's never been one to take orders, but maybe some people are just born to kill. Appearances by major characters.
1. Chapter 1

Everyone has to die sometime.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you're running as hard and as fast as you can but no matter how hard you try you can't go any faster, you can't get where you need to go? Like you aren't the one who's in control of your own body, and whatever it is that you're running to or from just fades away and you're all alone, doing everything you can just to keep moving forward?

Now, have you ever had one of those dreams where you're falling into a deep black hole and you jerk awake soaked in sweat and wondering why you'd rather just keep falling forever rather than coming around in a pace like this?

When you were little it was different. Dreams used to be about freedom. Instead of falling you would fly, instead of running you would dance, instead of waking up in the dark, hot and terrified, you would open your eyes to your favorite teddy bear and the early morning sunshine, because even when you were woken by the screaming or the banging you could cover your head with your blankets and pretend that you were someplace else, conjure up whole worlds in your mind. But somewhere between those days and these ones you've forgotten what it is to honestly believe that everything will be alright. The thought used to reassure you, even make you smile, but now you smile for a different reason: because happy endings have become a ludicrous idea. You go through the motions day by day, and maybe someday your happily ever after will be a bullet in the brain, and maybe then you'll have some peace.

The loss of control is the thing that bothers you the most. Not that there isn't structure. That's the one thing that's guaranteed. They've also put a gun back in your hand, and taught you how to actually use it, so that the only time that you feel like you have any power at all is when you're pulling the trigger and smelling the gunpowder, and feeling the recoil of this metal thing that has become an extension of your arm, so similar to the one that started you down this very path to hell. But even this is not in your control; it is how they have laid out your life; in a framework of their own making that will box you in until you die, which considering everything may just be sooner rather than later, and you think that just might not be a bad thing, not that you'd say that out loud. But once upon a time you made your own choices. Once upon a time you were the one who chose whose turn it was to die.

You remember other things about real life, outside the walls where there are trees and strangers and animals, seasons and daylight and moonlight and stars and fresh air.

You used to have a last name, not that it's much of a loss as it was his last name too, meaning you could never fully escape from him. There used to be people who would try to help you, who actually had good intentions. Sure, they were mostly cops, and social workers and the like, and you rarely said a word to any of them, but they were there, and they were real, and they only wanted the best for you. Until it was too late, and the best you could ever hope for was a gun in your hand and the face of a person you had never met running through your mind for the rest of your life, dead because those were the rules, dead because you killed them.

You used to think about them for months afterwards. You would wonder if they had children, husbands or wives, friends, pets, lovers. You would wonder if they actually deserved to die. And then you stopped wondering, and stopped asking, and for the most part even stopped caring, because if they were meant to die then so be it, and it didn't really matter who pulled the trigger. Better luck on the other side, not that you believe in that sort of thing. When you've lead the life that you have, there are certain things you just can't bring yourself to believe in.

You tell yourself that you could be dead, that you could be back where you started, that you might have never pulled that trigger, and for just an instant every decision you have ever made is justified, because they all come from that one moment when you weighed that heavy steel in your small hand for the first time, when you emptied the clip of that gun into his body, and felt his warm blood spray back at you as he fell for the last time. You still remember the shock of the recoil that nearly took you off your feet. You still remember the shock on his face as he died and you still remember how it felt, for the first time in your life, to feel relief, and you hang onto all of it, because you know that you will never regret that moment, and you will learn to accept all the others since. You know it, and they know it, and that's why they will always win. He was your first, and everyone knows that you'll meet your last on the day you die. Everyone has to die sometime, it's one of the two things that's guaranteed in life. The other is birth. The rest is just the game we play. These are the chronicles of a recruit.


	2. Chapter 2

I came to division the same way we all do. Not that that's where my story actually started exactly, but we'll get to that. Either way, it was where one of my lives ended and where a whole new one began. A second chance, I was told, and maybe that was true, but I never asked for one.

I was no one special. Like all the others I woke up in a dark room, in a white bed, not knowing where I was, where I had been, what had happened. Like all the rest I had been in prison one moment, and then all of a sudden I wasn't, would never be again. Not that I knew it then. Not that I understood that life as I knew it was over, for better or for worse.

Waking up in a strange place was nothing new to me. Neither was the institutional feel of the cold facility and empty room. I had spent enough time in hospitals and prisons to recognize the environment with my eyes still closed, had even gotten used to the sterilized chill.

"You have nothing better to do than watch me sleep?" I challenged, opening my eyes to the stranger, stretching, feeling the deep ache that spread through my whole body and made my head foggy. Something else that I was used to.

He didn't say anything, just watched me with that puzzling expression that I would come to know, some combination of cold amusement, pity, judgment. I would never know what he was thinking.

I didn't like the way he looked at me, as though he saw right through me, not a comfortable feeling. I pulled myself into a sitting position, would have stood if I wasn't light headed. Still, I refused to let him see how vulnerable I was feeling.

"Let me guess. Shrink?" I demanded, glaring at him. "I think we both know therapy's not going to do shit" I said flatly, maintaining eye contact. "Little late for that anyhow."

He almost smiled at this. "I'm not a therapist" he assured me. "My name is Michael. I work for the government. I'm here to give you a second chance."

I snorted, rubbed my arm self-consciously. "You're too late" I told him. "Got my second chance when I killed my father. Then another after I got out of juvie, then the hospital, half way house, juvie again, then prison of course. This might be number six or seven."

Something changed in his face, but then he was turning away, opening a file.

"Well this time is for real" he informed me. "As far as the world is concerned you're dead." He looked back at me. My first surprise, and he knew it, wanted to see my reaction. I didn't give him the satisfaction, forced my face to remain blank while my mind reeled. After a long moment I shrugged. I was thinking of all the possibilities, wondering what it all meant.

His eyes narrowed. He waited for me to speak, maybe to ask questions, but I didn't so he continued without me.

"Your death was officially ruled a suicide. We brought you here to start over, to work for us, to become a contributing member of society and a part of something bigger than yourself. You have the chance to start over."

I considered this for a moment. "What's the catch?" I asked suspiciously. I had learned long ago that if something seemed too good to be true than chances were that it was.

He smiled again and this time it was almost real. "You'll learn, train, follow the rules and work for us. That's how it works" he informed me.

"Or what?" I said, ever defiant.

He shook his head. " That's something you're not going to want to find out."

The message was clear, the warning was not subtle. Do as you're told, or else. I felt as though I was a child again, the message at least seemed the same. There was one way to survive, and choices didn't exist.

"You said you worked for the government?" I asked curiously.

He nodded.

"Doing what?"

Michael sighed. "You'll find out soon enough."

"And why me?" I demanded sharply. "What use could I be to the government?"

He cocked his head, observing me closely once again.

"You've killed… two people?" he glanced down at the file in his hand then back up at me, though I had the distinct impression that he already knew the answer, or at least what was written on the papers he held. I couldn't meet his eye.

"It doesn't matter now" he added in a low voice. "As far as the world is concerned you're dead too." He waited, and finally I looked up at him.

"Three" I said softly, the first time I had ever admitted it to anyone. He nodded as though this didn't surprise him at all.

"Starting with your father… when you were twelve?" he asked with the mild surprise of someone who had seen just about everything. He looked at me, seeming to expect some sort of explanation but that wasn't something I was about to offer, besides, I had no doubt it was spelled out for him in the file. It wasn't often that young girls happened to fill their fathers with bullets. And after that it was only a matter of time..

"There were no drugs in your system at the time of your booking" he stated. Another question? Something else about me that surprised him?

"I'm not an addict" I informed him firmly.

He shrugged. "No" he said slowly, "Just a cold blooded killer."

I glared at him. "You don't know anything about me" I told him.

"No" he agreed again. "But many just like you, others who end up here because the only other option for them is death row. Just. Like. You."

That was when it clicked in my head and I leapt up. "That's why the government wants me, isn't it? To kill for them? What the fuck is this place? You can't keep me here!"

I was on my feet yelling at him, but even as I said it I knew I was wrong, that they could do whatever they wanted, because I was legally dead, and even if I wasn't I would still be in prison. My mind and body were searching for a way out, past this strange man and his world of killers, past whatever was in the halls beyond the tiny room, but we both knew it was impossible.

He barely seemed bothered by my outburst. He was blocking the door, the only way out, and my need to escape was making me panic. The moment I realized it I began to force myself to calm down, to think the situation through, to breath, and once I was thinking rationally again I realized that attacking Michael and trying to escape undoubtedly would not work. I was beginning to get a picture of what I had been brought into, and I was a pretty sure that the man standing in front of me was a government sanctioned assassin. I didn't exactly have a chance, at least not yet. Instead I stilled, then sat back down on the bed and returned to glaring at him, my only concession to weakness the way I hugged myself, holding myself together.

"Impressive" he said sincerely, noting the almost instant changes in my demeanor.

I ignored this. "I'm not a murderer" I stated firmly.

"I disagree" he said. " I think you'd have no problem killing me right now if you thought that it meant an escape from here."

I didn't contradict him. It was exactly what I had been thinking since the moment I had opened my eyes.

He continued. "And I'm obviously not the only one. In fact your own mother-"

"Shut up" I said, so insistently and desperately that he actually stopped talking, and nodded. I was grateful when he closed the file, as though that somehow shut out my old life, not that the new one was going to be any better.

He watched me for another long moment in which I stared back at him with growing dislike and dread.

"You should get some rest" he told me. "Wouldn't want to sleep through training. You're lucky. It's worse for the addicts who have to detox first."

If this was meant to reassure me it didn't work. With one last nod he crossed to the door and was gone. I stared at it for a good minute, then curled up on the small bed and forced my mind to go blank so that I wouldn't have to think about the past, the present, and what seemed worst of all: the future.


	3. Chapter 3

I felt my feet leave the ground and a moment later the wind was knocked from my lungs as I slammed into the mat with all the force of my larger, stronger opponent. I was expecting the effects, it hadn't been the first time, and did my best to struggle back to my feet before I had even caught my breath, only to be knocked down once more. I remembered that I was supposed to be fighting back, and used the opportunity to kick the boy's feet out from under him, so that he joined me on the ground.

More experienced, he was back on his feet before I had managed to struggle back to my own. I lashed out with my fist. He grabbed it and twisted my arm painfully behind my back. I didn't make a sound, took the pain, had reached the place where I barely felt it. I caught sight of Michael leaning against the bars of the walkway, observing the fight with a pained expression. Apparently, I was doing even worse than I had thought.

I was being forced to my knees as my arm was shoved into an even more unnatural position. I reached over my head with my other arm, grabbed hold of my attacker, tried to flip him over my head as I had been shown, failed, jerked myself backwards into his legs. I felt and heard my arm pop out of its socket, surprising both of us, but he didn't let up until-

"Enough." Michael had joined us on the floor. I was released instantly and the other recruit fell back to join the group. He waved them all away and they withdrew slowly, moving on to other activities. I was on my feet and made to move on myself, knowing I wouldn't be allowed to go.

"Dani."

I turned back slowly, dreading the encounter.

"Let's see your arm" he offered, holding out his hands. "We all heard it pop" he was watching my face. I shrugged, which hurt. The arm in question hung uselessly at my side, supported by my other hand. He took my arm, put a hand on my shoulder.

"This is going to hurt" he told me unsympathetically. I didn't respond, did my best not to flinch as he popped it back into its socket, the pain worse than the original separation.

He let go of me and I rubbed my shoulder, flexed the muscles.

"Thanks"

He eyed me. "What the hell was that?" he demanded.

"What?" I said defensively, fully aware that in a real fight I would be long past dead. "That guy was huge."

"If I remember right you took on two prison guards and did a sufficient amount of damage. Saw the footage myself. It wasn't pretty, and you didn't give up. You're obviously a fighter, but I'm not seeing it." He informed me. "So what's the deal? Why did you fight back then, but not now?"

I shrugged, with considerably less pain.

Why did you kill your father, and the others?" he was watching me closely, as though trying to read the answer in my closed expression. I refused to meet his eye, but maybe he could read my mind, because he was shaking his head.

"Your father beat you" he said. Not a question, not sympathetic, just a fact, a part of the puzzle that he was trying to piece together. I glared at him, but he continued.

"For twelve years you put up with it, with your mother failing to protect you, or herself, but then something changed… and then at the prison…"

It was irritating how he knew more about me than I knew about myself, but he had already figured it out, without my having said a word, and I had the urge to hit him.

"Why'd you finally decide to shoot your father? He was bigger, stronger, but the gun was always there, doesn't take muscle to pull that trigger…"

"Baby's crying" I whispered, a shadow of a memory, just slipping out. I clamped my hand over my mouth as his eyes narrowed, arms folded over his chest as he took me in.

"You didn't fight for yourself" he said curtly, "You didn't fight for you. It was always for someone else."

I shook my head fervently but his mind was made up. "At the prison, was there another girl? Someone who was bullied by the guards, someone you felt protective of?"

"Sara…" I said in the same whisper. He nodded knowingly.

"And your baby brother" he stated. I clenched my jaw, resisting the urge to scream. Somehow talking about my family didn't fit into division, didn't feel safe. It had been eight years since I had seen them, but still.

"And the other times?" he asked.

I shook my head stiffly, glad that he was speaking low enough that the others couldn't hear. I hated him for trying to figure me out, for succeeding.

"You have to get out of your head" he told me. "I mean it Dani. You have to fight for you. Take all that rage and fear and turn it into your weapon, your own, to protect yourself. You gotta know that Dani, that it's not okay to be hurt. You don't deserve to be punished, you never did, especially when you were just a kid. Someone attacks you, you have to stop accepting it and start fighting back."

I snorted. "And if I'm the attacker?"

He gave a half smile. "We'll get to that. One step at a time."

"Sure you're not a shrink?" I asked. Michael rolled his eyes. "Start trying" he urged, and there was a hint of warning in his voice, reminding me of what he had said on my first night, that I didn't want to know what would happen if I chose not to comply with the rules.

"I am trying" I snapped back.

"Bullshit. You hesitate. You go to some place in your head where you're conditioned to hang on until the punishment stops. Maybe you think you deserve it, maybe not, but it has to stop."

He was right of course. I did feel like I deserved it. Condition of abused children everywhere. Condition of the girl who had shot her father to save her baby brother, who would fight for everyone except herself.

Michael sighed. "Look" he said, perhaps going easy on me as the memories flooded my head and my face fell. "We can teach you to shoot. We can train you to hit. But we can't train you to stop playing victim. That's something you have to do for yourself."

"I bet Amanda would have a strategy" I challenged, half sarcastically.

"Yeah, well I wouldn't suggest that" he said meaningfully, offering me a brief insight into his impression of her. I didn't mention it.

"It's easy to die for someone else" he said, with the voice of experience. "Living for yourself is really hard, but if you can't do that then you'd better find something that you can live for, whatever that might be. Don't let your father win."

"I don't want to die, if that's what you think" I informed him.

"But do you want to live?" he asked me.

"What do you live for?" I asked him before I could stop myself. The look on his face at my question told me more than I had learned about him since my arrival.

He turned away. "Target practice in ten!" he announced to the room at large, then without another glance in my direction he was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

In the beginning I would go to sleep so exhausted that I didn't even dream. It was a relief really, for my mind to be simply blank for eight hours after so many years of waking in a cold sweat. Soon enough however they had returned, my body regulating itself to allow the nightmares back in.

I woke with my mother's banshee shrieks echoing in my mind. Screaming. At me? Probably. I had never heard her scream like that until the night I killed her husband. Not when he beat her, not when he went after me, not when he held a pillow over the baby's face when he cried for too long. Somehow, through all of it, it hurt her more to lose him than all the rest put together. She loved him, and not in that settled, tolerating way that often comes over a couple after many years, but really truly loved him, was willing to sacrifice everything for him. She was eighteen years older than me, and still, as a child, I already knew better than her, was the only one who was willing to stand up for the innocent baby who cried, who might not have survived my father the next time.

He was one of those men who was crazy, angry, drunk and violent in an unimpressive way- a small man with sneaky fists, with a wife who wouldn't even lift a hand to protect herself, let alone her innocent children. My mom had two kids that she couldn't take care of. I think there was another before me, another girl, but that baby hadn't lasted long. Lucky her. Needless to say, they never spoke of her. I found a photo once, with the name and the date written on the back. I didn't dare show it to either of my parents. I kept it hidden with my other prized possessions under a loose floorboard in the room I shared with the baby. Had to leave them all behind that night, even him. I wondered if they were still there after all these years. Maybe my little brother had discovered them, asked our mother about the sister, or sisters he had never known. Or maybe another family lived there, had laid new flooring and everything I had thought so precious was buried forever under hardwood floors or plush carpeting.

I assumed that it had been the nightmare that had woken me. Disoriented as I was, it took several long moments for me to notice the pretty Asian girl standing silently next to the head of my bed. This put me on the defensive for a moment, but I had seen her around, an older recruit, different than the others somehow, gentler, though you wouldn't guess it if you watched her fight.

"You have nightmares" she stated simply, as though she had strolled into my room for a chat.

"Who doesn't?" I asked, still irritated with her presence.

She shrugged. "Amanda wants to see you" she said coolly.


End file.
